Reconstruction: Doncaster - SPL has ‘much to offer’

SCOTTISH Premier League chief executive Neil Doncaster says his organisation has no “Plan B” in place after seeing its controversial 12-12-18 league reconstruction proposal torpedoed by two of its own members.

During a four-hour general meeting of the 12 current SPL clubs at Hampden yesterday, Ross County chairman Roy MacGregor stood shoulder to shoulder with his St Mirren counterpart Stewart Gilmour to prevent the 11-1 majority vote necessary to push the plan through.

Even a last-ditch amendment to future voting rights, tabled by Celtic and Aberdeen, which would have resulted in any subsequent reconstruction decided on a 9-3 vote could not persuade either MacGregor or Gilmour to change his stance.

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It provoked an angry reaction by many of the biggest advocates of 12-12-18, with Aberdeen chairman Stewart Milne delivering a particularly withering blast at Gilmour in particular.

Doncaster later attempted to present a more measured view of the day’s events, stepping away from the previous dire warnings of the conseqeunces of a “No” vote which had been expressed in the past week by figures such as former First Minister Henry McLeish and Celtic chief executive Peter Lawwell.

Although dismayed by the outcome, Doncaster says the SPL still has “much to offer” in its current format and is confident of attracting a new title sponsor to replace Clydesdale Bank which is ending its agreement with the league at the end of this season.

Doncaster also dismissed any suggestion that failure to get 12-12-18 accepted is a potential resignation issue for him. SPL chairman Ralph Topping yesterday confirmed he will not seek re-election this summer. Talk of forming an SPL2 was also played down by Doncaster, amid constant speculation that First Division clubs could resign from the Scottish Football League, but he did claim it is those clubs which will bear the financial brunt of yesterday’s decision.

“I don’t have any mandate from the SPL clubs to talk about any Plan B at the moment,” said Doncaster. “The First Division clubs are certainly the biggest losers today. They need more income, so let’s wait and see.

“There is a sense of real disappointment around the SPL table. I’m particularly disappointed for everyone who has put so much hard work in over the past season for it to come to this.

“But I’m particularly disappointed for the First Division clubs who were so reliant on agreement of the proposals in order to be able to sustain full-time professional football at the level they are at. They are the real losers from today’s vote.

“I’m not going to make any predictions about the future. The clubs were at pains to stress today that this was what they wanted to focus on. There wasn’t a desire to look at any other proposals. We fell one vote short.

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“It is clearly a very emotional day, for everyone who has been part of this debate over many years. The first meeting in this particular round of discussions was back in March 2010.

“Stewart Milne, like a number of others, devoted a huge amount of man hours to developing proposals to take the game forward, which would deliver many of the things supporters want to see – a merged league, better redistribution of money, a pyramid structure for the game, more excitement, more promotion and relegation.

“All of that, which formed part of the plan, is now not happening. Like many people, we believed going into the meeting that voting rules on league structure were fundamental to concerns that some had. So when two clubs put forward a pretty major concession that would change the rules on voting, which would enable future league restructuring to change based on a 9-3 vote, most people in the room expected that would be the breakthrough and that we would achieve consensus. But it wasn’t to be and the two clubs who voted against the package as a whole also voted against the amendment. That was certainly surprising to me and to most other people in the room.”

Doncaster, along with Topping, had outlined a 10-club and then a 16-club top flight as the way forward in previous years but did not accept that the switch to proposing the 12-12-18 plan, including its contentious ‘middle eight’ division, left the SPL management lacking credibility.

“There are different ways of playing a league structure,” said Doncaster. “I know they grab the headlines. But the bigger issues are actually financial distribution, a pyramid, play-offs and a single league body. Those are the bigger ticket items which would have been delivered by the package today. There are some clubs who favour a smaller league of 10, some a larger one of maybe 14. Coming up with a solution that enables consensus requires all clubs to give a little.

“All clubs had given a lot of compromise to get to the point of consensus. Remember we have had two separate votes previously and on both occasions, 12 clubs unanimously in principle backed these proposals to take them forward.

“An executive team can and should only do the will of its clubs. That will was expressed very clearly. Ultimately, when it came to voting for real, two clubs chose to vote against it. I can’t control the votes of individual clubs.

“There was a lot of conversation and that’s what led to the proposal coming forward which was a major concession on voting rules on future league reconstruction. For that change to be offered up, to move from 11-1 to 9-3, was pretty material. I’ve certainly not seen that at any previous SPL meeting. Most people in the room believed that would unlock the vote, that it was the change sought by a number of clubs to enable this to go forward. But it was blocked.”

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Doncaster now faces a race against time to a have a new sponsor in place for the 2013-14 SPL campaign.

“It is my job to look at the positives and do the best job possible for the league in bringing in as much money as we can as a whole,” he added.

“We have got the benefit of five-year broadcasting deals, which were put in place last summer. Those remain, so there a number of reasons we can still look forward with confidence.

“We remain in the hunt for a title sponsor. We have got a great deal we can offer. We have had a number of conversations with different parties. These proposals would have enabled more money to come into the game from a number of different directions.

“While I remain confident in the SPL’s ability to bring money in for the benefit of the 12 clubs, the key thing lost today is the ability to redistribute that money to facilitate full-time professional football in the second tier.We expect clubs at that level to sustain full-time professional football on distribution income of less than £100,000 a year. That’s not realistic. First Division clubs will be feeling most sore after today’s events.”

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